Vampire: Bloodlines Designer Diary #7

GameSpot has dished up the seventh installment to their ongoing designer diaries for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. This time, Troika programmer Dennis Taylor discusses the game’s artificial intelligence and how humans and vampires will behave realistically. An excerpt to follow:

One of the major classes of NPCs you will encounter often in the game is the pedestrian class. When they are idle, pedestrians will walk around looking for things to do. Some like to dance. Some like to window-shop. Some are bums who like to sit by the fire with a little brown bag.

All pedestrians will obey the traffic laws and wait at crosswalks and won’t jaywalk. That is, unless you scare them. Normally you want to try not to break the laws or break the masquerade, but when you do, all hell breaks loose. Pedestrians panic very easily.